Adler / Brown - One Lives But Once [CD]

March 4th 2018 marks the 90th birthday of one of the twenty-first century's most influential and prolific composers: Samuel Adler. This three-disc boxed set provides a cohesive overview of his output and includes many premiere recordings. A pupil of both Paul Hindemith and Aaron Copland, Adler is a phenomenal symphonic writer (who, quite literally, wrote the book on orchestration) whose style merges twenty-first century ebullience with an almost classical economy and balance. The first two discs feature the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt under conductor Emily Freeman Brown performing the First and Second Symphonies, a dance suite for orchestra, plus three concertos: the Concerto for violin and orchestra, featuring Siwoo Kim, the award-winning violinist who originally premiered the work; the Concerto for woodwind quintet and orchestra; and the first Piano Concerto, featuring the prize-winning young pianist Michael Brown. The third disc features the highly talented young players from the Eastman School of Music alongside guitarist and fellow Eastman professor Nicholas Goluses. This is especially fitting since Adler taught at Eastman for nearly thirty years and these students represent the continuation of his prodigious legacy.